a man; person; rank; office;
civil rank, legal personality and succession;
a study of the man and the capacities attributed to him;
where a man attributes his deed to an imaginary body to conceal responsibility, justify unequal treatment, or claim something without proper grounds, that conduct is examined here against the natural-law principle of living honestly;
summary
this enquiry begins with two principal sources: historical teachings on the law and conduct of man kind preserved in the Bible, and William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England; the first supplies the scriptural foundation for examining the conduct of man kind and the respect of persons; the second supplies the legal distinctions between natural persons, artificial persons and the ranks of society;
the starting point is man; a man does the deed; in Black’s Law Dictionary, PERSON is defined as:
A man considered according to the rank he holds in society, with all the right to which the place he holds entitles him, and the duties which it imposes.
Black’s Law Dictionary, revised fourth edition, 1968, p. 1299;
the qualification is “considered according to”; the definition concerns the consideration of man through his place in society and the rights and duties attributed to that place;
Blackstone distinguishes two kinds of person:
Natural persons are such as the God of nature formed us; artificial are such as are created and devised by human laws for the purposes of society and government, which are called corporations or bodies politic.
Book I, chapter I, star p. 123; source;
the artificial person is a devised construction, written about and represented by man kind; in Blackstone’s corporation discussion, bodies politic and bodies corporate are alternative descriptions of that construction; the description supplies no independent body capable of a deed;
Blackstone describes the natural person by natural formation; the passage reproduced in Black’s, p. 1300, describes it through attributed rights and duties; in this paper, that shift in the basis of the definition is examined as a redefinition; Hans Kelsen makes the conceptual construction explicit:
The physical (natural) person is, thus, no natural reality but a construction of juristic thinking.
Kelsen, General Theory of Law and State, 1949 printing, p. 96;
within Blackstone’s English political hierarchy, the king occupies the royal station at its head; honours, offices and privileges proceed from that station; the civil divisions extend through nobility and commonalty to the concluding group of tradesmen, artificers and labourers; rank assigns unequal places within this arrangement; Book I, chapter VII, star p. 271; chapter XII, star pp. 396–407;
Maitland describes the earlier conception of kingship:
The medieval king was every inch a king, but just for this reason he was every inch a man
Maitland, The Crown as Corporation (1901); source;
Blackstone expressly describes the king as a corporation sole; in X v The Lord Advocate [2025] UKSC 44, paragraphs 40–41, the judges repeat the Crown’s corporate classification and distinguish the Sovereign’s official capacity from his private capacity; these sources establish the historical contrast in the conception of kingship; a man continues to hold the station, while its continuing official capacity is described as an artificial person; Blackstone, Book I, chapter XVIII, star p. 469; 2025 judgment;
Blackstone also places royal consent at the foundation of incorporation in England, whether expressly or impliedly given; the royal station, itself classed as a corporation sole, thus occupies a central place in his account of the corporate structure; Book I, chapter XVIII, star pp. 472–474;
the criticism advanced here concerns the substitution of that idea for the man; the office is an idea maintained by man kind; succession describes its continuation and rank describes its place within the imagined order; neither supplies an independent being capable of a deed;
registration provides an example; a man makes an entry concerning a physical thing; a man can physically receive the thing, while the corporate idea called Crown cannot; registration records an attribution, but supplies no mechanism by which the physical thing passes into the idea; the thing remains physical, and the idea remains an idea;
this distinguishes physical receipt from legal attribution; the practical consequences of the record depend upon what man kind do with it; the structural defect examined here arises when the corporate description is presented as the recipient or source of a deed, concealing the man who did it;
Blackstone makes the physical distinction particularly clear in his discussion of aggregate corporations:
Neither can it be committed to prison; for, its existence being ideal, no man can apprehend or arrest it.
Book I, chapter XVIII, star p. 477; source;
the scriptural challenge to partiality by standing is expressed directly by Elihu:
Let me not, I pray you, accept any man's person, neither let me give flattering titles unto man.
he later describes God as accepting neither the persons of princes nor the rich above the poor, because all are the work of his hands; the connection with rank is explicit; Job 34:19;
Blackstone likewise writes that human laws should not contradict natural and revealed law; using murder as his example, he states that if a human law permits or commands it, “we are bound to transgress that human law”; this supplies his argument about moral obligation, with the contradiction established, rather than a general exemption from modern legal proceedings; Introduction, section II, star pp. 42–43;
the question throughout is whether an attributed rank or corporate description has displaced consideration of the man and his deed; the office remains an idea; a man does the deed, and its rightness must be examined on its own grounds;
supporting references
definitions, historical context and source passages supporting the opening;
person and legal personality
person: rank, rights and duties
Black’s defines PERSON:
A man considered according to the rank he holds in society, with all the right to which the place he holds entitles him, and the duties which it imposes.
Source: Black’s Law Dictionary, revised fourth edition (1968), p. 1299; “right” is singular in the original;
the qualification “considered according to the rank he holds in society” is part of the definition; rank supplies the specified consideration, with its entitlements and duties;
the entry continues:
A person is such, not because he is human, but because rights and duties are ascribed to him. The person is the legal subject or substance of which the rights and duties are attributes. An individual human being considered as having such attributes is what lawyers call a natural person.
Source: Black’s, p. 1300, citing Pollock, First Book of Jurisprudence, p. 110, and Gray, Nature and Sources of Law, chapter II;
both passages concern a specified legal consideration of the man; the second names the consideration through attributed rights and duties a natural person;
Kelsen: man and the legal construction
man and person
Man is a concept of biology and physiology, in short, of the natural sciences. Person is a concept of jurisprudence, of the analysis of legal norms.
Source: Kelsen, General Theory of Law and State, translated by Anders Wedberg, third printing (1949), p. 94, chapter IX, B(a);
Kelsen’s legal consideration concerns particular conduct: what a man does or refrains from doing, so far as that conduct is the subject of legal rules; the man’s whole existence exceeds that consideration; the natural person is the personification of the duties and rights concerning the same man;
natural and corporate personality
The physical (natural) person is, thus, no natural reality but a construction of juristic thinking.
Source: Kelsen, p. 96, chapter IX, B(b);
Kelsen includes both natural and corporate personality within the wider category of juristic construction; he retains a narrower technical use of juristic person when discussing corporations; their common ground in his analysis is the grouping and personification of rights and duties;
Blackstone uses artificial person for a corporation; Kelsen uses construction more broadly for legal personality itself; the two accounts employ different classifications;
function and official position
Kelsen distinguishes performing a legal function from holding an official position; making a contract or voting can constitute a function within his broad account of the legal order; his narrower account of an official concerns appointment or election, professional duties and remuneration; members of parliament and jurors illustrate intermediate cases;
Source: Kelsen, pp. 192–193, “The Organs of the State”;
legal personality, function and official position are therefore separate considerations; a form of address supplies evidence of an office only in conjunction with the position and duties to which it refers;
persona: character and relation
In the civil law. Character, in virtue of which certain rights belong to a man and certain duties are imposed upon him. Thus one man may unite many characters, (personæ,) as, for example, the characters of father and son, of master and servant.
Source: Black’s, PERSONA, p. 1300, citing Mackeldey, Roman Law, § 129; “civil law” here denotes the Roman-law tradition;
one man may unite several characters; each supplies the relation through which particular rights and duties are attributed; father and son concern kinship, master and servant concern service, and claimant and defendant concern a proceeding; these descriptions have different foundations from civil rank or incumbency of an office;
sole proprietor
A sole proprietor is a natural person and it is the sole proprietor who is the ‘person’.
Source: HMRC, VATREG02100, “Basic principles of registration: meaning of person”;
sole proprietor describes the individual conducting business on his own account; this guidance classifies the proprietor as the natural person and uses legal person for a separate entity or body, including corporations; its terminology concerns VAT registration; Kelsen’s wider use of juristic person concerns the conceptual construction of personality;
the royal corporation sole
incorporation and succession
corporation and incorporation
Black’s defines INCORPORATION:
The act or process of forming or creating a corporation; the formation of a legal or political body, with the quality of perpetual existence and succession, unless limited by the act of incorporation.
Source: Black’s, p. 907;
incorporation here denotes formation; corporation denotes the resulting corporate construction;
natural and corporate capacities
Blackstone opens his corporation chapter:
We have hitherto considered persons in their natural capacities, and have treated of their rights and duties.
he then describes artificial persons:
These artificial persons are called bodies politic, bodies corporate, (corpora corporata,) or corporations:
Source: Blackstone, Book I, chapter XVIII, *467; text;
body politic and body corporate here name the same class of artificial persons; the terms alone establish no hierarchy between them;
authority for incorporation
But, with us in England, the king’s consent is absolutely necessary to the erection of any corporation, either impliedly or expressly given.
Source: Blackstone, Book I, chapter XVIII, *472;
Blackstone describes that consent as express through a charter or an Act of Parliament, and implied through common law or prescription; this concerns the authority for incorporation;
Source: Blackstone, Book I, chapter XVIII, *472–474;
corporation sole
Corporations sole consist of one person only and his successors, in some particular station, who are incorporated by law, in order to give them some legal capacities and advantages, particularly that of perpetuity, which in their natural persons they could not have had.
Source: Blackstone, Book I, chapter XVIII, *469;
the elements are a particular station, incorporation and succession; the holder has his own lifetime, while corporate continuity is attributed to the station; Blackstone’s parson example concerns property continuing to the next incumbent instead of descending to the former holder’s personal heir or answering his debts;
the king as a corporation sole
Coke divides corporations into those which:
either stand upon one sole person, as the King, Bishop, Parson, &c. or aggregate of many
Source: Coke, The Case of Sutton’s Hospital, 10 Co Rep 23a, at 29b; Selected Writings, volume I;
Coke gives common law as the authority for the King’s incorporation; other means listed are parliamentary authority, the King’s charter and prescription; unlike the process sense in Black’s definition above, incorporation in this passage also names the corporate body;
Blackstone expressly includes the king:
In this sense, the king is a sole corporation;
Source: Blackstone, Book I, chapter XVIII, *469;
in Halsbury, paragraph 414, it is written:
A corporation sole is a body politic having perpetual succession, constituted in a single person
Source: Halsbury’s Laws of England, Corporations, volume 24 (2025), paragraph 414; opening extract;
and in paragraph 415:
The Sovereign is a corporation sole
Source: Halsbury, paragraph 415;
the royal source of honours, offices and privileges is thus expressly classified as a corporation sole; the corporate construction concerns the continuing station; man kind hold the station, use its capacities and perform the deeds;
Maitland’s criticism
in The Crown as Corporation (1901), Maitland called the application of corporation sole to the King “still more abortive and infinitely more mischievous”; he criticised the confused account of two persons or two bodies, and the attribution of qualities such as never dying or doing wrong; the construction had not itself separated land held as king from land held as man, or public money from personal money; “All had to be done by statute”;
Source: F. W. Maitland, The Crown as Corporation, Collected Papers, volume III, PDF page 118; longer extract on Crown;
absolute ownership, dominion and lord paramount
in paragraph 4 of the explanatory notes to the Land Registration Act 2002, Crown is described as the only absolute owner of land in England and Wales, while others hold an estate in land; in paragraph 128, dominion over all land is attributed to Crown as lord paramount; lord paramount describes the highest lord in the arrangement of tenure, under whom the land is held;
Source: Land Registration Act 2002, explanatory notes, paragraphs 4 and 128; the written ownership premise on Crown;
the enquiry made here; the structural problem examined in this paper is the attribution of absolute ownership and dominion to an imaginary body at the highest rank of tenure; the office is an idea, while the land is physical and every deed is performed by man kind; naming the office as owner supplies no mechanism by which land passes into an idea; registration records an attribution of title, and succession preserves that attribution through successive holders of the office;
the question is therefore what grounds the claim to dominion and what justifies the deeds of man kind who rely upon it; the explanatory notes state the ownership premise, but do not record a date or instrument by which a king surrendered his dominion to a corporation sole; this is the paper’s criticism of the premise; Maitland’s particular criticism concerns the confused construction and the statutory work needed to distinguish public from personal property;
king, Crown and kingdom
Blackstone explains the demise of the Crown through the separation of the king’s natural body from his body politic and the succession to the royal dignity; in this passage, Crown concerns the continuing kingship; it does not establish a second corporation sole alongside the king;
Source: Blackstone, Book I, chapter VII, *249; text;
the wider body politic in his account of parliament comprises the king and the three estates: lords spiritual, lords temporal and commons; the distinction is between the royal corporation sole and that constitutional body;
Source: Blackstone, Book I, chapter II, *153; text;
legal and the English order
Black’s defines LEGAL, sense 6:
Lawful; of or pertaining to law.
Source: Black’s Law Dictionary, revised fourth edition (1968), p. 1038;
working definition — legal: pertaining to human law; in this study, the laws of the English political society;
in Blackstone’s account, the king, in his royal political capacity, stands at the head of the body politic; legislative authority belongs to the king, lords and commons together;
Source: Blackstone, Book I, chapter II, *153, *160; text;
the Crown’s place concerns the English constitutional structure; Blackstone also describes the king as the distributor of justice, rather than its original source;
Source: Blackstone, Book I, chapter VII, *266–267; text;
rank and office
the king: honours, offices and privileges
The supreme executive power of these kingdoms is vested by our laws in a single person, the king or queen:
Source: Blackstone, Book I, chapter III, *190; text;
The king is likewise the fountain of honour, of office, and of privilege;
Source: Blackstone, Book I, chapter VII, *271; text;
Blackstone connects government with subordination of rank, respect and obedience; he describes the conferring of dignities, the establishment and disposal of offices, and the granting of privileges; honours originally carried duties or offices; royal powers had limits, including the requirement of parliamentary authority for new fees amounting to a tax;
the man holding the royal station is considered through its powers and capacities; Coke, Blackstone and Halsbury expressly classify the king as a corporation sole; the royal source of honours, offices and privileges therefore has that corporate character;
nobility and commonalty
Blackstone divides the lay subjects into civil, military and maritime states; within the civil state:
The civil state consists of the nobility and the commonalty.
All degrees of nobility and honour are derived from the king as their fountain:
Source: Blackstone, Book I, chapter XII, *396; text;
| division | degrees and descriptions |
|---|---|
| nobility: the peerage | duke, marquess, earl, viscount, baron |
| commonalty | orders of knighthood, baronets, esquires, gentlemen and yeomen |
| remaining commonalty | tradesmen, artificers and labourers |
these are the civil divisions among the subjects; the king is treated separately as the source of honours; the royal family precedes the degrees of nobility; precedence among particular honours is set out in the full chapter;
peers among the commonalty
of the commoners, Blackstone writes:
all are in law peers, in respect of their want of nobility.
Source: Blackstone, Book I, chapter XII, *403;
peerage denotes the noble division; peers also describes commoners as equals in the stated respect, despite differences in their rank;
the final group
The rest of the commonalty are tradesmen, artificers, and labourers,
Source: Blackstone, Book I, chapter XII, *407;
these three descriptions form the concluding group; Blackstone supplies no separate ordering within it;
rank and office
Black’s gives an official and military sense of RANK:
Grade of official standing. The order or place in which certain officers are placed in the army and navy, in relation to others.
Source: Black’s, RANK, p. 1426;
Blackstone records civil standing acquired through office:
Esquires by virtue of their offices; as justices of the peace, and others who bear any office of trust under the crown.
Source: Blackstone, Book I, chapter XII, *406;
an office can confer standing; rank describes relative place, while office concerns a particular position and its functions; Black’s military definition applies in its stated context; qualification and entry to an office depend on the rules of appointment, election or succession;
private person, incumbent and public
PRIVATE PERSON. An individual who is not the incumbent of an office.
Source: Black’s, p. 1359;
INCUMBENT. A person who is in present possession of an office; one who is legally authorized to discharge the duties of an office.
Source: Black’s, p. 908;
the distinction turns on incumbency; a private person is described by its absence, an incumbent by present possession of the office; holding an office and performing a particular deed in an official capacity are separate questions;
under PUBLIC, adjective:
Pertaining to a state, nation, or whole community; proceeding from, relating to, or affecting the whole body of people or an entire community.
Source: Black’s, p. 1393;
public concerns the state or community; the quoted definition of private person concerns officeholding;
rights and duties
rights, duties and the deed due
Blackstone describes the corresponding sides of social duty:
at the same time that they are due from one man, or set of men, they must also be due to another.
Source: Blackstone, Book I, chapter I, *123; text;
| relation | foundation in Blackstone’s account | things due |
|---|---|---|
| parent and child | natural law and the parents’ deed in bringing the child into the world | maintenance from the parent; the corresponding entitlement of the child |
| master and domestic servant | hiring and its terms within the historical service arrangements | service, maintenance and wages applicable to the hiring |
| governing and governed | the political relation | reciprocal protection and allegiance |
Source: Blackstone, Book I, chapter XVI, *447, *452–454; chapter XIV, *425–428; chapter I, *123;
where a deed is due from one man to another, duty describes the owing and right the corresponding entitlement; the relevant questions are the deed due, its foundation, and the man to whom it is due; in the political relation, obligations run in both directions;
natural, divine and civil foundations
in Blackstone’s account, natural and divine duties have foundations independent of political society; human laws also establish particular civil rights and duties for the purposes of that society; both include positive duties and prohibitions;
Source: Blackstone, Introduction, section II, *54–55; text;
he describes natural and revealed law as concerning man’s duties to God, himself and his neighbour, considered as an individual; municipal law considers the same man in an additional capacity:
But municipal or civil law regards him also as a citizen,
Source: Blackstone, Introduction, section II, *45; opening clause;
Black’s definition supplies rank as a consideration within society; Blackstone also distinguishes relative rights arising through relationships from absolute rights belonging to the individual, including life and liberty; he treats protection of absolute rights as the primary purpose of human laws;
Source: Black’s, PERSON, pp. 1299–1300; Blackstone, Book I, chapter I, *123–125; text;
a right to do something is an entitlement; Blackstone’s definition of municipal law concerns conduct commanded or prohibited, which is a separate use of right and wrong;
Source: Blackstone, Introduction, section II, *44;
historical background and word usage
the royal person in Blackstone
Blackstone describes the royal person, in philosophical terms, as:
one man appointed by mutual consent to preside over many others
Source: Blackstone, Commentaries, first edition, Book I, chapter VII, p. 234; text;
names, additions and titles
Black’s defines the name-related sense of ADDITION:
Whatever is added to a man’s name by way of title or description.
Source: Black’s, p. 59, citing Cowell;
additions describe estate, degree, occupation or residence; estate here includes social condition, as in yeoman, gentleman or esquire; Blackstone records their use alongside the name in specified proceedings involving possible outlawry; the surname and the addition perform separate descriptive functions;
Source: Blackstone, Book I, chapter XII, *407;
civil address
Blackstone, quoting Thomas Smith, connects a gentleman’s standing with the address master:
he shall be called master, and shall be taken for a gentleman.
Source: Blackstone, Book I, chapter XII, *406;
the OED derives Mr from master and Mrs from mistress; the Mr entry includes civil uses such as Mr Justice, Mr Mayor and Mr Speaker, alongside nautical usage;
address associated with an office
Dana writes:
Both the chief and second mates are always addressed by their surnames, with Mr. prefixed, and are answered with the addition of Sir.
Source: R. H. Dana, The Seaman’s Manual (1841), p. 154;
Dana calls this a requirement of ship’s duty; the form of address applies to the man holding the mate’s station; on the same page, he discusses the mate’s duties and succession to the master;
title and office distinguished
Blackstone describes viscount as an honour “without any shadow of office pertaining to it”; he also records the earldom becoming a title after county government had passed to the sheriff;
Source: Blackstone, Book I, chapter XII, *398;
the sources establish a connection between some forms of address and particular offices; they also distinguish a title of honour from an administrative function; title, name and surname alone do not establish an office: the relevant evidence is the position held, its source and its duties;
etymology and usage
the OED traces person through French to Latin persona, including “a mask used by a player” and “a character, relation, or capacity in which one acts”; it records that the literal mask sense did not descend into English; English sense I.1 opens “A character sustained or assumed”;
the selected etymological extract for human is:
L. hūmān-us of or belonging to man, human, a derivative of the same root as homo, homin-em man.
the 1933 adjective sense 1 is:
Of, belonging to, or characteristic of man.
Source: OED (1933), volume V, p. 443; entry and facsimile;
etymology, English usage and legal classification are separate forms of evidence; human is used here as an adjective relating to man; quotations retain the authors’ terminology;
books and sources
references
- Black, Henry Campbell. Black’s Law Dictionary. Revised fourth edition, West Publishing, 1968; ADDITION 59; INCORPORATION 907; INCUMBENT 908; LEGAL 1038; PERSON 1299–1300; PERSONA 1300; PRIVATE PERSON 1359; PUBLIC 1393; RANK 1426;
- Blackstone, William. Commentaries on the Laws of England. Introduction, section II; Book I, chapters I, II, III, VII, XII, XIV, XVI and XVIII; quotations follow the 1893 Sharswood edition unless the first edition is specified; an asterisk denotes its star pagination; the linked first-edition transcription has different pagination;
- Coke, Edward. The Case of Sutton’s Hospital. 10 Co Rep 23a, at 29b; reproduced in Selected Writings, volume I;
- Halsbury’s Laws of England. Corporations, volume 24 (2025), paragraphs 414 and 415; public extracts consulted 14 October 2026;
- Kelsen, Hans. General Theory of Law and State. Translated by Anders Wedberg; Harvard University Press, third printing, 1949; pp. 93–96, 192–193;
- Dana, Richard Henry. The Seaman’s Manual. 1841; p. 154;
- Oxford English Dictionary. Second edition: person, Mr and Mrs; the selected human entry follows the 1933 edition, volume V, p. 443;
- HMRC. VAT Registration Manual, VATREG02100. “Basic principles of registration: meaning of person”; consulted 12 October 2026;
related studies: /mask, /parson, /name, /feudal, /crown and /oed;